Every year at this time, boating looms large for thousands of people in Kentucky and, as people hit the water for fishing and other recreational activities, they do so with constant reminders from boating officials and law enforcement agencies to exercise extreme caution when out on the state's river, lakes and dams.

A steady roll call of boating accidents throughout the summer months reinforces that message. Recently, for example, a speed boat participating in a race on the Ohio River collided with a safety rescue boat and ejected all three of its passengers. Four people were injured in the collision, one of them seriously. Two of them were flown to the University Hospital in Louisville for treatment.

What especially concerns safety officials is alcohol consumption or, as one Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources ("KDFWR") spokesperson puts it, "drinking and what it does out on the water."

What it does is affect a boater in ways quite different from a motorist in a car. Experts cite elements such as sun, rain, wind, various noises, boat and water vibrations and choppy and rolling movements. Although these have a cumulative effect on a boat operator under any circumstances, they exert especially powerful influences on one who has been drinking.

Most centrally, they induce fatigue and impair judgment. According to a prominent boat safety website, a boat operator with a blood-alcohol level above 0.10 percent (the legal limit is 0.08 percent) is 10 times more likely to die in a boat accident than an operator who has not been drinking at all.

A KDFWR official says that nearly half of all boating deaths on Kentucky waters involve alcohol use.

Related Resource: Murray Ledger, "Law Enforcement Officers Team to Keep Boaters Safe" June 25, 2011